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So Who Are The Nazis? Meet Atlas’s Thugs

In the days leading up to Israeli Apartheid Week‘s opening event at Columbia University, leading anti-Muslim blogger Pam Geller posted an image of an SS officer with the name of one of the event’s speakers, Ben White, emblazoned on his uniform. (The image recalled placards held by far-right settlers depicting Yitzhak Rabin in an SS uniform just days before he was assassinated.) Geller was among the crowd at the Columbia event, making sure to catch White’s eye as he walked to the podium to speak. He told me that she mouthed to him, “You’re a Nazi.” The day after the event, Geller posted another characteristically juvenile screed describing White as “Nazi boy.”

There is little reason to engage a figure like Geller on the merits of her deranged characterizations. And it would be unfair to ascribe crude views like hers to the established pro-Israel groups working to discredit Israeli Apartheid Week. Their tactics are slightly more sophisticated, even if they have also demonstrated a reluctance to engage White and other participants on the facts about Israel’s systematic dispossession of the Palestinians. (Canadian pro-Israel students have united around a vaguely pornographic counter-campaign called “Size Doesn’t Matter” that invokes insecurities about penis length and equates traveling to Israel with the pleasure of oral sex.)

Pam Geller: "How I wish I could be there to stand with the English Defense League"

Geller’s attacks on White are worth discussing only in light of their irony. She is, after all, a fervent supporter of a British fascist group comprised of soccer hooligans and skinhead thugs who have delivered sig heil salutes en masse at their rallies while also displaying Israeli flags — a most bizarre melange. Geller’s endorsement of the shadowy fascist group, called the English Defense League, highlights the reorganization of the British far-right around an anti-Muslim, pro-Zionist platform designed to cultivate alliances with influential online fanatics like her.

On the same day Geller posted her smear of White, she promoted a rally in defense of the Dutch anti-Muslim extremist Geert Wilders by the English Defense League (EDL) (Wilders has called for a “head rag tax” on Muslim women who wear hijab).

“How I wish I could be there to stand with the English Defense League,” Geller pined.

The Pam Geller-approved EDL burns an anti-Nazi flag

So what happens at a typical EDL rally? According to a report by Wales Online, at an October 2009 rally in Swansea by the EDL’s Wales-based affiliate, the Welsh Defense League, “onlookers were confronted with scenes of jeering men giving Nazi salutes.” At another rally in Stoke on Trent in January, intoxicated EDL activists in black masks attempted to break through police lines to assault anti-racist protesters around the block, injuring several police officers in the process.

Who belongs to the EDL? The group’s muscle is provided by thugs affiliated with the right-wing football hooligan club, Casuals United. The Casuals are led by an infamous thug who goes by the name “Tommy Robinson” and who will only appear in public in a balaclava. The Casuals are themselves a front for the another violent football hooligan gang called Soul Crew. Soul Crew’s former leader, Jeff Marsh, is now the head of the Welsh Defense League and a recruiter for the Casuals.

According to the Daily Mail, neo-Nazis from Combat 18 and the British Freedom Front have insinuated themselves into the ranks of the EDL along with activists from the incipient neo-fascist British National Party (BNP), which is led by former white supremacist organizer Nick Griffin.

Though the BNP has distanced itself from the EDL, the two groups enjoy clear membership cross-pollination. For example, BNP activist Chris Renton helped set up the EDL’s website. While the EDL remains amorphous, its leadership appears to be following the organizational techniques employed by neo-Nazi groups like the British Peoples Party, which attempted to translate its acts of street terror into political power; and the BNP, which declared a “race war” on Muslims at a 2001 meeting. (Go here for a comprehensive look at ties between the EDL and BNP.)

British extremist right groups like the BNP have reorganized around a pro-Zionist, anti-Muslim platform to broaden their support. Israeli flags are a routine sight at EDL rallies.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the EDL is its identification with Israel. EDL activists routinely wave Israeli flags at rallies and carry placards declaring the groups support for Israel’s “right to exist” (go to :50 of this excellent BBC video report). The group’s support for Israel reflects a gradual reorientation of Britain’s far-right in favor of the policies of the Jewish state and against the rights of Muslim immigrants. While their motives for the strategic shift are largely cynical, they are also rooted in a genuine fascination with the image of Israel as a state fighting for ethnic purity against armies of Muslim marauders.

The BNP’s Griffin, who has openly denied the Holocaust and accused Jews of controlling the media, urged his allies to transmute their anti-Semitism into Islamophobia to broaden the party’s political appeal. He wrote in 2007, “It stands to reason that adopting an ‘Islamophobic’ position that appeals to large numbers of ordinary people – including un-nudged journalists – is going to produce on average much better media coverage than siding with Iran and banging on about ‘Jewish power’, which is guaranteed to raise hackles of virtually every single journalist in the western world.”

Ruth Smeed of the Board of Deputies of British Jews observed with astonishment, ”The BNP website is now one of the most Zionist on the web – it goes further than any of the mainstream parties in its support of Israel and at the same time demonises Islam and the Muslim world.”

When Israel attacked the Gaza Strip in 2008 and ’09, leading BNP figures celebrated. ”This sort of ‘disinfecting’ process whereby Israel is required to sterilise areas of radical Islamist support … is what all nations have to do in order to eradicate Islamist cells who have managed to take over territory either within or on the edges of their borders,” BNP head of legal affairs Lee Barnes proclaimed on his blog on January 4. He continued, “Get used to the casualties – for without them any nation so infected with Islamism will surrender, rot away into liberal apathy and then dies as it is taken over.”

Griffin echoed Barnes’ comments in an essay called “Israel’s Gaza affair:” “The Israelis will NEVER get unbiased reporting on the Brussels Broadcasting Corporation, despite being the only civilised country in the region & fighting for their very existance [sic],” Griffin proclaimed. “It is NOT our place to get involved but you aren’t the only one to be 100% behind them, they are an example to us all because the only thing the Islamic Terrorists understand is FORCE.”

The reorientation of the BNP around a pro-Zionist, Islamophobic platform led directly to the rise of the EDL. Now Pam Geller has volunteered as perhaps the group’s most prominent online promoter. So who is the Nazi?

34 thoughts on “So Who Are The Nazis? Meet Atlas’s Thugs”

Although there is clearly a neo-Nazi presence of some sort at EDL events, it should be noted that the EDL has been keen to repudiate the association – there was a burning of a Nazi flag for the cameras here, and I think that most members would agree with that. However, there is certainly plenty of the crudest anti-Muslim feeling and some thuggish sentiments. I blogged on Jeff Marsh’s football hooligan memoir here.

Geller’s enthusiasm for the EDL is in contrast to Robert Spencer. A few months ago Spencer had dinner in a London restaurant with Martin Mawyer of the Christian Action Network; Mawyer had previously interviewed EDL leaders, and unknown to Spencer and other guests Mawyer’s assistant had invited the EDL along to the restaurant. When I blogged on this, Spencer made it very clear that he had left the restaurant before the EDL leaders arrived, and he had had nothing to do with them. He also made noises about libel.

“Tommy Robinson” was recently arrested, prompting Geller to extrapolate wildly to the idea that this means that she too might soon be arrested.

It’s strange how one is guaranteed to read the terms ‘thugs’, ‘loons’, ‘racists’ and ‘Islamophobes’ ascribed to people that don’t march in lockstep with the elitist-defined current world order.
The purpose of this story is purportedly to inform readers of the racist, violent, Nazi-like characteristics of the EDL.
Yet, there is not one documented interview with anyone in this apparent ‘mob’, not one bit of real reporting as to why this rally occured, what the motivations of these people are.
In a matter of months the 5th anniversary of the London Muslim bombings will occur.
These bombings were Muslim Jihadist violence: the savages that carried out these acts were UK-born devout Muslims with a hatred of their own country, and a desire to see innocent people killed in the name of Allah
I’m waiting to see posted here, or anywhere, pictures of ANY rally of Muslims decrying and rejecting the violence committed in the name of their religion, daily, all over the world.
I’d like to see the pictures of the last Muslim rally in London where people were NOT carrying signs calling for the ‘Queen to be beheaded’, for those ‘who ‘insult’ Islam to be beheaded’, that ‘Anglia, your 9/11 is coming’, etc.
Until that day occurs there, or in any Western country, why should you or anyone else criticize people who have had enough?
BTW, ‘Islamophobia’ implies a ‘fear’ of Islam: these people aren’t ‘afraid’ of Islam, they are sick of the constant, insidious cultural destruction occuring in their country.

You are full of bullshit. Muslims aren’t nearly as violent as you claim. So you see the occasional bullshit by fundies; saying that all muslims embody that is like saying that all christians are is stupid as the dumbnuts who live in the bible belt and try to surpress science. Also, you ignore the fact that Muslims are responsible for a mere 0.4% of all terrorist attacks in europe are muslim. Islamaphobia is irrational fear. there is no cultural destruction. loons are mocked because they are brainless fucks trying to compensate for having small penises.

‘you ignore the fact that Muslims are responsible for a mere 0.4% of all terrorist attacks in europe are muslim. Islamaphobia is irrational fear.’

You’ve confirmed a few things with your erudite, classy post: the left does much more dope than the right, because only someone smoking crack could make such a profoundly fucking stupid statement.
’0.4 %’? Really? Ask a 10-yr old English kid whether he thinks this statement is accurate, or perhaps was provided by your neighborhood ‘Imam’. Utter insanity. 200 + slaughtered like dogs for the crime of going to work in Spain. 50+ splattered out of buses and subways in London, without warning.
What fucking ideology permits, condones, approves such slaughter?
Do you have eyes, do you have a mind that can think rationally? The animals who perpetrated these crimes were devout Muslims. How many planned attacks have been averted by UK intelligence since 2005? Out of these how many were ‘Christian fundamentalist’ in nature? How many Jewish?
You did’nt answer any of the questions posed above. When the peaceful devout London Muslim community gathers this coming July to commemorate those murdered by their brethren, post the damn pictures.
Until then, you might want to drop the penis jokes: they do nothing to validate your ‘statistics’.

I’m an admin at wikianswer and found this answer to a question to “who is pam geller”

“PAMELA GELLER is the founder, editor and publisher of Atlas Shrugs.com, bringing you the news you will not hear from the mainstream media, covering little-reported events of great import, and providing an unblinkingly honest examination of global affairs.

Pamela Geller is the author of the soon to be released book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America with Robert Spencer (foreword by Ambassador John Bolton) (Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster). ”

and goes on and on, obviously a shill and breaks god knows how many rules with that shameless plug. I’m going edit the answer but I’d like some more info for balance in a new answer.

Gee, thanks! An Interpol report! Holy shit, I bet they decided to lay it all out for us, the public, as easy as picking up a daily newspaper.
Tell me, if your capable of formulating a thought or opinion of your own, in addition to your commendable cut and paste: who the hell are the OTHER 99.6% of the terrorists commiting these crimes?
I’ll ask the question for the 3rd time: were these atrocities committed by Jews? by Christian fundamentalists? by raging Buddhists or Hindus?

And this question for ‘Ajax151′, the ‘Wiki adminstrator’: do you also need someone to tell you how to think, or how to come to a conclusion of your own?
Why not spend some time on the blog, check out the stories, and perform what an administrator might occasionally do: like check out the veracity of what is being written for yourself, see if the attribution (ie, the sources) are accurate and check out.
If they aren’t let us know. Otherwise ask the fucking scholars above, Ruby and Darthyan to give you some of their character and genital assessments on the matter: they’ll fit right in with the objectivity and intelligent writing found on this blog.

Max, you want to keep an eye on this creature called Robin Dubner, who is most probably a friend of Pamela Geller and Debbie Schlussul, and the rest of that insiduous crowd.

Dubner is a 200 lb woman who tussled with “Stand With Us”. Take plenty of armour and a bodyguard if you decide to film her as she’d probably kill anyone she fell on top of, and then plead it was self defence. It’s certainly fitting to call her a “Weapon Of Mass Destruction”,